Hey all! It has come to my attention that I should make a post to talk about some things that apparently have been spreading around lately. Every so often, I have to deal with someone I donāt know making a post about me to āwarnā people about me, stating that I am āabusive/manipulativeā (despite the only post that could be construed this way having been taken down and rescinded, as you can read here which is paired with my post here) or some other bad thing, which they then use as a reason to send harassment and abuse in my direction.
It really sucks watching regular people (who want to do good!) get sucked into spreading misinformation about others. Iāve gotten to watch callouts crop up about tons of people I know, in the past 2-3 years, and the perpetrators have almost always been people who take advantage of others who genuinely want to do good. Of course it makes sense to warn people about someone who is dangerous - but when hateful people realize they can take advantage of that sense of good, of right and wrong, of peopleās desire to āwarnā about ādanger"ā¦ well, they take advantage of it. They will then get well-meaning people to spread "PSAsā, under the guise of trying to be helpful.
Callouts originated as a tool to get someone to stop engaging in harmful behavior, but they are now frequently misused as a tool to punish and isolate an individual the poster does not like. Callouts have become a tool to try to drive people offline, to try to ruin their life, to try to annihilate them out of existence. When you see a callout about how someone is an āabuserā, this doesnāt actually convey anything useful. Something like this often stems from misunderstandings or mistakes. If someone makes a mistake and has said they wonāt do it again ā and then they donāt do it again ā thatās the end of it. Thereās no need for a ācalloutā because there is nothing to be corrected, the person is trying their best to move on and do better. Callouts at that point are simply to punish a person for existing - spreading them, even with good intentions, only does harm to everyone involved at this point.
And so of course, this leads certain individuals realizing that if you give someone a bad label - āabuserā āmanipulatorā Ā etc, itās a really easy way to trick naive and trying-to-be-helpful people to hate someone you donāt like. It does not even matter if the label is not relevant anymore, or if it was never actually relevant.
You need to be really careful about this - people will do whatever they can to justify the bad things theyāre doing to or saying about someone. I am constantly on the receiving end of extremely hostile messages and harassment because of people hearing something their friend said, or reading some line out of context, or what have you. I still will receive some message that refers to something I have no idea about, at all, but that is being used as a reason that itās OK to attack me to my face.
Further, people view any modest āpopularityā (not necessarily just in followers, but including things like a post that gets a lot of notes!) as a reason that itās OK to say cruel and hateful things about someone, regardless of if this person actually did anything or not. Iāve seen this happen over and over to various friends - they will get to do a cool or neat thing, and the response will be someone angry about this, but disguising their anger as trying to be helpful in āwarningā others. I am privy to many conversations among creators who are scared to post anything anywhere because of the current state of social media and how easy it is to defame someone under the guise of āprotectingā people. It is a game of manipulation to try to isolate creators who are often minding their own business and just trying to make art for the benefits of others.
This happens to me fairly often, but the most notable case was a Kickstarter I ran last year. In the final hours, it was on track to succeed, but I caught wind of many people getting angry about this and trying to report it for false reasons. Their efforts didnāt land, but it was still frustrating to have to deal with pure spite and pettiness designed to ruin something I had been working hard on.
Be very careful about the things you spread, and the circles you interact with. When you accidentally contribute to this kind of culture, it becomes much easier for it to be used on you, one day. Think very hard about what it would be like if thousands of strangers decided to misconstrue your words and spread it around - it is more likely to happen than you think. Thereās not a lot to be done except to try to be critical of anything you read. This goes in all things, but especially in the things people try to get you to spread about others.
Please be careful, everyone! There are actual people on the receiving end of your actionsāeven if you mean wellāand it has real consequences and hurts real people. Remember the saying: āThe road to hell is paved with good intentions.ā Please think twice before spreading things about people you donāt personally know.
